ISAS Working Paper

No. 203 – 8 April 2015 Institute of South Asian Studies

National University of Singapore

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Modi’s American Engagement:

Discarding the Defensive Mindset

C Raja Mohan

1

Abstract

In two quick summits with the US President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Narendra

Modi has taken big steps to resolve the lingering nuclear dispute, revive defence

cooperation, go past trade disputes, explore common ground on climate change and

renew the engagement on regional security cooperation. For years now, progress on

these issues has been held up principally by Delhi’s reluctance to negotiate

purposefully and find practical solutions. By combining strong political will with a

clear focus on practical outcomes, Modi has altered the bilateral narrative on India-

US relations and created the basis for deepening India’s strategic partnership with

America.

1 Dr Chilamkuri Raja Mohan is Visiting Research Professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies

(ISAS), an autonomous research institute at the National University of Singapore. He is also

Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi; Contributing Editor for

Indian Express; and Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International

Peace, Washington DC. He can be contacted at isascrm@nus.edu.sg and crmohan53@gmail.com.

Opinions expressed in this paper, based on research by the author, do not necessarily reflect the

views of ISAS.

2

Modi’s Inheritance

Despite shared political values and expanding connections between the two societies

over the last century, Delhi and Washington found it hard to build a sustainable

partnership. Repeated efforts at constructing a consequential partnership have

stuttered in the past. Many, therefore, are sceptical in assessing the consequences of

the unexpected political warmth between India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and

the US President Barack Obama. They question the claim of the two leaders that they

have begun a new chapter in India-US relations. Yet this scepticism, rooted in the

recognition of the past failures, might be missing the elements of significant change

that have begun to envelop the ties between Delhi and Washington since Modi

became Prime Minister in May 2014. To be sure, Modi’s efforts to transform India’s

relations with the United States are not new and are in line with the attempts that

Delhi has made since the early-1980s. But by encouraging a basic change in the way

that India thinks about the United States and America’s place in India’s engagement

with the world, Modi has turned out to be rather different from his predecessors in the

South Block.

If India and America steadily drifted apart during the early decades of the Cold War

to become ‘estranged democracies’, they certainly became more engaged since the

1980s.2 When Indira Gandhi returned to power as Prime Minister in 1980 she

corrected the tilt in India’s foreign policy towards the Soviet Union during the 1970s

and sought to rebalance Delhi’s great-power relations by reaching out to President

Ronald Reagan. Much of the deep rooted anti-Americanism that is widely presumed

to be a natural attribute of the Indian political classes is the product of a tectonic

political shift within India and its regional environment in the 1970s. Mrs Gandhi’s

shift to economic populism at home and Third World radicalism abroad was

compounded by the Nixon-Kissinger empathy towards Pakistan in the 1971 war for

the liberation of Bangladesh. As Delhi drew closer to Moscow and disconnected itself

from the global economy, there was little substance left in India’s engagement with

the United States and the West. The focus of Indian diplomacy towards the United

States turned inevitably to the management of differences rather than constructing a

2 For a comprehensive discussion of India-US relations during the Cold War, see Dennis Kux, India

and the United States: Estranged Democracies, 1941-1991 (Washington DC: National Defence

University Press, 1992).

3

broad-based relationship. After Mrs Gandhi tried to change course in the early-1980s,

her son and successor Rajiv Gandhi brought much greater enthusiasm to the

engagement with the United States. Some of the dominant themes in India’s

contemporary relations with the US – from IT business connection to defence

cooperation – can all be traced back to the Rajiv years.3 Yet, the political constraints

of the Cold War and India’s inward economic orientation limited the possibilities with

the US. Repeated attempts at elevating ties with America into a genuine strategic

partnership did not gain much political traction.

The end of the Cold War and Delhi’s economic reorientation opened up new

possibilities between India and America.4

Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao

declared that the ‘sky was the limit’ to cooperation with Washington. Departing from

the script about nonalignment, Atal Behari Vajpayee proclaimed that India and

America were ‘natural allies’. Manmohan Singh famously said how Indians ‘loved’

George W Bush. But the Indian leaders faced three sets of problems in Washington in

the first decade after the Cold War. One was the fact that the US, as the sole

superpower after the demise of the Soviet Union, appeared to have little reason for a

strategic embrace of India. Second, America’s strong concerns on non-proliferation

put India’s ability to sustain its nuclear-weapon option at risk. India’s decision to

conduct nuclear tests in May 1998 sharpened the nuclear divide between the two

countries. Third, American diplomatic activism on Kashmir in the 1990s raised

profound concerns in Delhi that was feeling the heat from the indigenously-generated

unrest in Jammu & Kashmir and Pakistan’s support for cross-border terrorism.

The advent of George W Bush as the President of the United States in 2001 provided

an opportunity to recast the relationship in the second decade after the Cold War.

Vajpayee and his foreign policy advisers, Jaswant Singh and Brajesh Mishra, were

determined to seize the moment. Unlike Clinton, Bush was ready to look at India

from a strategic perspective and recognise Delhi’s potential to shape the Asian

balance of power. Having made that judgement, Bush was eager to explore creative

solutions to the long-standing nuclear dispute with India, desist from interference in

3 Satu Limaye, U.S.-India Relations: The Pursuit of Accommodation (Boulder, CO: Westview Press,

1993) 4 Sunanda Dutta-Ray, Waiting for America: India and the U.S. in the New Millennium (Delhi:

HarperCollins, 2002)

4

Kashmir and de-hyphenate America’s relations with India and Pakistan.5 This new

thinking in Washington began to bear fruit in the second term of the Bush

Administration that coincided with the installation of Manmohan Singh as the Prime

Minister of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government in the middle of

2004. In two remarkable moves in mid-2005 – a new ten-year defence framework

agreement and the historic civil nuclear initiative – Bush and Manmohan Singh laid

the foundation for a productive strategic partnership between the two countries.6 In

the decade that followed, the Indian government struggled to follow through on these

game-changing agreements. While Prime Minister Manmohan Singh understood the

enormous significance of the new strategic possibilities with the US, he could not

persuade the Congress leadership that panicked at the thought of drawing close to

Washington. Lack of political self-confidence among the Congress leaders and the

fear of antagonising key domestic constituencies saw the government not only avoid a

close partnership with the US but also deliberately introduce some distance between

Delhi and Washington.

Ending the Ambivalence

That Modi has significantly altered the dynamic of the bilateral relationship within a

short span of nine months is not in doubt. The sense of stasis that had enveloped the

relationship towards the end of the UPA Government has yielded place to a renewed

sense of optimism about the relationship, akin to that seen in the first year of

Manmohan Singh’s tenure. Modi’s contribution was not about bringing big new ideas

to the engagement with the United States. Those ideas and possibilities were well

debated in the mid-2000s.7

Modi’s success was in ending India’s political

ambivalence towards America and bringing clarity to India’s own objectives.

Observers of Indian foreign policy have often said that Delhi does not know what it

wants from its main international partners. It therefore becomes reactive rather than

pro-active in its external engagement. Worse still, instead of explaining India’s new

possibilities on the global stage, there is a strong temptation in Delhi to stick to the

5 For an explanation of the context and consequences of this shift in US policy, see Ashley Tellis,

“The Merits of Dehyphenation: Explaining U.S. Success in Engaging India and Pakistan”,

Washington Quarterly, vol. 31, no. 4, 2008. 6 For a discussion of these initiatives and the Indian response, see C. Raja Mohan, Impossible Allies:

India, U.S. and the Global Nuclear Order (Delhi: India Research Press, 2006). 7 S. Paul Kapoor and Sumit Ganguly, The Transformation of U.S.-India Relations: An Explanation

for the Rapprochement and Prospects for the Future, Asian Survey, vol. 47, no. 4. 2007.

5

familiar and avoid any experimentation. Weak coalition governments in the last three

decades have also been deeply wary of domestic political reaction to major external

initiatives. Posturing to the domestic audiences, then, has tended to dominate the

Indian establishment’s responses to the opportunities and challenges that confronted it

since the end of the Cold War.

But few in India or the United States expected Modi to break this defensive mind-set,

especially towards the United States. Given his own problems with the decade-long

American denial of visa,8 many thought he would be lukewarm at best towards

Washington. On top of it, there was also little enthusiasm in his own Bharatiya Janata

Party (BJP) for partnership with the United States. In the ten years it spent on the

opposition benches during 2004 to 2014, the BJP, which boldly reached out to the US

under Vajpayee, turned utterly opportunistic in attacking every move that Manmohan

Singh made in response to the extraordinary openings created by Bush. Many in the

strategic community insisted that Modi should not travel to the US without an

apology from Washington. Through the election season, Modi tended to stay away

from any pronouncements on foreign policy issues. It was only towards the end of the

campaign that Modi said he was not going to let his personal problems cloud his

government’s foreign policy towards America.9 That reassurance, however, did not

prepare Delhi for what would follow in the immediate aftermath of the 2014 elections

that propelled Modi to power.

Obama quickly reached out to Modi and invited him to come for an early meeting at

the White House. Modi was more than ready and took the opportunity of his first

appearance at the United Nations to reconnect with America. Barring one speech at

the UN General Assembly and a few meetings on the margins of the world forum,

Modi spent most of his time in reaching out to the American businessmen, the Indian

diaspora and the American political class. Obama, often criticised for his aloofness

towards foreign leaders, showed surprising warmth towards Modi. As they reviewed

the state of bilateral relations, the two leaders decided to make a big push at resolving

many outstanding issues between the two countries that had accumulated thanks to

8 The visa denial was based on Modi’s alleged role in the communal riots in Gujarat during 2002.

9 See the full interview to the Asian News Agency on April 16, 2014 at

<http://deshgujarat.com/2014/04/16/narendra-modis-interview-with-anivia-youtube/>

6

the indecisiveness of the UPA Government.10

Modi in contrast was ready to confront

the problems head on if Washington showed some flexibility. The proposition that the

two leaders could do business with each other was confirmed by their ability to

negotiate a solution, within weeks after the September 2014 meeting, to end the spat

between the two countries at the World Trade Organization (WTO) on trade

facilitation and food security.11

At another equally important level, Modi reached out

to the American corporates with the proposition that India is open for business with

America once again.

Soon after, Modi had a bigger surprise in store. He broke Delhi’s diplomatic tradition

by inviting Obama to be the main guest at India’s annual Republic Day celebrations

in January 2015. This was the first time that Delhi chose to extend such an invitation.

Sensing the new possibilities with India, Obama postponed his annual state of the

union address to the US Congress and decided to show up in Delhi for nearly 48

hours. Obama's acceptance set the stage for an intensive round of negotiations on a

range of issues, including the lingering dispute over the implementation of the civil

nuclear initiative. The outlines of a mutual understanding on implementing the civil

nuclear initiative emerged in the months after the September summit, as Delhi opened

purposeful negotiations with the US on three issues – American concerns about

India’s Nuclear Liability Act, India’s demand for a quick closure on the terms of

international safeguards, and Washington’s support for Delhi’s membership of the

Nuclear Suppliers Group. The two sides found innovative ways to close the gap

between their positions, allowing the leaders to proclaim a ‘breakthrough

understanding’ on the nuclear issues.12

While many have questioned the lack of

sufficient detail, the two leaders have concluded that the two governments have done

their work on finding a way out of the impasse on nuclear liability and that it is up to

the commercial entities to negotiate the specific nuclear contracts.13

10

The White House, U.S.-India Joint Statement, September 30, 2014, available at

<http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/09/30/us-india-joint-statement> 11

Teresita C. Schaffer, India and the WTO – A Reprieve, (Brookings, November 2014), available at

<http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2014/11/14-india-and-the-wto-schaffer>

12 The White House, Statements by President Obama and Prime Minister Modi of the Republic of

India, January 25, 2015, available at <http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-

office/2015/01/25/statements-president-obvama-and-prime-minister-modi-republic-india>

13 Ministry of External Affairs, Frequently Asked Questions and Answers on Civil Liability for

Nuclear Damage Act 2010 and related issues, February 8, 2015, available at

<http://www.mea.gov.in/press-

7

If a nuclear deal that satisfied the two governments was on the cards in the run-up to

Obama’s visit in January, few observers in Delhi anticipated the developments on

climate change, which has long been a site of confrontation between India and the

United States. In a nation where the virtuousness of India’s international policies is

measured by their political distance from those of Washington, Modi promised to

‘cooperate closely’ with America to conclude an ambitious global climate agreement

at the end of 2015 in Paris. With Obama standing next to him in Delhi, Modi said

India’s problem was not about resisting pressure from America on climate change.

Sovereign India was confident enough to handle it, Modi suggested. India’s real

pressures today, Modi said, were about protecting the environment for future

generations of Indians from the threats of climate change and global warming.14

The

PM’s new approach to climate change is centred around deepening bilateral

cooperation with the US on expanding the share of renewable energy in India’s total

energy consumption and developing cooperation with Washington in multilateral

forums. With his bold departure on climate change, Modi is signalling that Delhi’s

entrenched ‘Third Worldism’ is yielding place to the idea of India as a responsible

power.

If Modi’s approach to climate change was a surprise, many eyebrows were raised by

Modi’s plans to deepen the strategic partnership with America in shaping the future of

the vast Indo-Pacific region that stretches from East Africa to East Asia. For one,

Modi agreed to renew the ten-year defence framework that the UPA Government had

signed with the US in 2005. But once A K Antony replaced Pranab Mukherjee as the

Defence Minister, Delhi slowly but certainly walked away from the spirit of the

agreement. Few in Washington were willing to bet that the agreement would be

renewed if the UPA had returned to power in 2014. Modi was determined to give a

big push to defence cooperation with America especially in the modernisation and

expansion of India’s defence industrial base. But the greatest surprise from the Obama

visit was the joint vision statement that he signed with Modi on the Indian Ocean and

releases.htm?dtl/24766/Frequently_Asked_Questions_and_Answers_on_Civil_Liability_for_Nucle

ar_Damage_Act_2010_and_related_issues>

14 The full text of PM Narendra Modi's statement at press interaction with US President Barack

Obama, January 2015 is available at <http://www.mea.gov.in/Speeches-

Statements.htm?dtl/24725/Prime_Ministers_Media_Statement_during_Joint_Press_Interaction_wit

h_President_of_United_States_of_America>

8

the Asia-Pacific region.15

To be sure, promoting Asian balance of power was at the

heart of the transformation of the India-US relations in the first term of the UPA

Government. In the second term, though, the government deliberately began to

distance itself from Washington in the name of ‘strategic autonomy’ and

‘nonalignment’. In his joint statement with Obama on the Asia Pacific and the Indian

Ocean, Modi decisively repudiated that ambivalence towards the United States.

Beyond Strategic Autonomy

The decision to expand the engagement with the United States on regional security in

the Asia Pacific and the Indian Ocean generated some concerns at home about the

potential Chinese reaction and the implications for India’s policy of nonalignment.16

These fears were more about the lack of self-assurance in the Congress leadership and

the security establishment rather than a credible assessment of China’s foreign policy

record or its current geopolitical calculus or the nature of Asia’s international

relations today. Consider for example the fact that China had been closer over

extended periods of time to Washington than India has ever been to America in the

last seven decades. Even today, China’s economic and commercial relationship is

much thicker than Delhi’s ties with either Washington or Beijing. As Obama himself

pointed out, the US annual trade with China stands at around US$ 560 billion while

that with India is US$ 100 billion.17

India’s own trade with China is at US$ 70 billion.

Even America’s Asian allies, including Japan, South Korea and Australia, have

greater economic interdependence with China.

Instead of viewing Delhi’s relations with Washington and Beijing in binary terms,

Modi appears to have recognised that India’s relations with both America and China

are way below potential and can be significantly expanded. China, of course, does not

limit its partnership with America by citing concerns of its large neighbours like

Russia, Japan and India. Beijing, in fact, is urging the United States to agree to a “new

15

The White House, U.S.-India Joint Strategic Vision for the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean Region,

January 25, 2015, Available at <http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/01/25/us-india-

joint-strategic-vision-asia-pacific-and-indian-ocean-region> 16

Siddharth Varadarajan, “China or US: India must have a master strategy in the poker game”,

Hindustan Times, January 29, 2015; available at <http://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/china-

or-us-india-must-have-a-master-strategy-in-this-poker-game/article1-1311933.aspx> 17

President Obama’s remarks at the India-U.S. CEO’s Forum, New Delhi, January 26, 2015, available

at < https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/01/26/remarks-president-obama-us-india-

business-council-summit>

9

type of great power relations” with China that could generate a shared leadership

between the two giants.18

Beijing uses its relationship with America to secure its own

national interests, shape the global balance of power and reshape its regional

environment. Unlike the UPA Government, the NDA governments of Vajpayee and

Modi have not been paralysed in their engagement with great powers by the ideology

of nonalignment.

The idea that Beijing will react violently to India’s engagement with America is also

not borne out by the history of Sino-Pak relations. After all, Pakistan has been a

strong military partner for both America and China. Pakistan joined the US military

alliance system in the 1950s, including the Central Treaty Organization and the South

East Asia Treaty Organization, at a time when America was determined to combat

communism in Asia and did not recognise the People’s Republic of China. The

military alliance with America did not prevent Pakistan from warming up to China in

the 1950s. Unlike India where the hot air about nonalignment began to inject

ideological rigidity and strategic incoherence into India’s foreign policy, Pakistan

thought more creatively about the possibilities with America and China. Navigating

the complex dynamic between Washington and Beijing in the 1950s and 1960s,

Pakistan became a valuable bridge between America and China when the two sides

wanted to normalise relations at the turn of the 1970s. China did not object to intense

military partnership between America and Pakistan in the 1980s or when Washington

declared that Islamabad-Rawalpindi was a ‘major non-NATO ally’ in the 2000s.

If Delhi thinks that strategic autonomy is some kind of a unique attribute of Indian

diplomacy, Pakistan is only one example of how all countries big and small seek

flexibility in foreign policy and seize opportunities that present themselves. India’s

problem lies in the infusion of ideology into the concepts of strategic autonomy and

nonalignment. From a practical perspective, ‘strategic autonomy’ is about expanding

one’s room for manoeuvre by engaging all potential partners. In India, though, the

idea of ‘strategic autonomy’ has been viewed through an ‘anti-Western’ lens over the

18

For a discussion, see David M. Lampton, A New Type of Major-Power Relationship: Seeking a

Durable Foundation for U.S.-China Ties, The National Bureau of Asian Research, Asia Policy 16,

July 2013, available at <http://www.nbr.org/publications/element.aspx?id=650>

10

decades.19

Signing a security treaty with the Soviet Union in 1971 was not seen as

undermining India’s strategic autonomy, but doing anything with America was

denounced as a departure from nonalignment. In India’s foreign policy discourse,

sitting together with China and Russia in a room was welcome, but building a joint

platform with the US and Japan was not. Modi is saying India can no longer afford

this kind of ideological self-indulgence. As one of the world’s largest economies and

as a rising power, Modi is suggesting, India needs more intensive partnerships with all

great powers, including America and China. Modi is also signalling that, given India’s

expanding interdependence with the rest of the world, what Delhi needs is not

‘strategic autonomy’ as much as ‘strategic influence’ in regional and global affairs.

Towards Strategic Influence

A stronger partnership with America opens up immense possibilities for expanding

India’s strategic influence in the South Asian Subcontinent and the broader Indo-

Pacific Region. Since India’s independence in the middle of the 20th

century, one of

the enduring problems in the relationship between India and the United States has

been their divergent positions on regional issues. The US decision to draft Pakistan

into the Cold War alliances in the 1950s and the US-Pakistan security treaty of 1954

set the stage for a prolonged regional contestation between Delhi and Washington.20

The two sides have differed in their reading of China in different phases. While their

approaches to China changed dramatically over the last 70 years, Delhi and

Washington were never on the same page.21

The end of the Cold War did not immediately reduce this divergence. The Clinton

Administration’s questioning of Kashmir’s accession to India, and its eagerness to

mediate between India and Pakistan in the early-1990s sharpened the political

tensions. It was only with the advent of the Bush Administration that the doors for

regional security cooperation opened. The de-hyphenation of US relations with India

and Pakistan, and Washington’s strict neutrality on the Kashmir dispute, helped build

19

For a discussion on the evolution of the concept of ‘strategic autonomy’ see Guillem Monsonis,

“India’s Strategic Autonomy and the Rapprochement with the U.S.”, Strategic Analysis, Vol. 34,

No. 4, July 2010. 20

For a comprehensive account, see Robert McMahon, Cold War on the Periphery: The United

States, India and Pakistan (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013). 21

For a discussion, see Alyssa Ayres and C. Raja Mohan, eds., Power Realignment in Asia: China,

India and the United States (Delhi: Sage publishers, 2009).

11

new level of trust on regional issues with Delhi. While differences remained on how

best to deal with Pakistan, India and the US learnt to live with those. In another first,

the Bush Administration also decided to defer to Indian interests elsewhere in the

Subcontinent. Above all, the sub-text of the Bush Administration’s warmth towards

Delhi was the belief that a strong India will help contribute to a stable balance of

power in Asia and limit the Chinese ability to dominate the region.22

If Bush transformed the basis for American engagement with India, initial missteps of

the Obama Administration tended to revive old suspicions of US policy in Delhi.

Obama’s public musings on mediation between India and Pakistan and the presumed

link between the Kashmir dispute and Afghanistan renewed many Indian suspicions

of US policy. In the East, the US emphasis on a China-first policy raised questions

about continuity in Washington’s approach to India. To his credit, Obama held back

from diplomatic activism on Kashmir, and the failure of his outreach to Beijing

resulted in the articulation of the pivot to Asia. Meanwhile on the Indian side, Delhi

under the UPA Government seemed increasingly hesitant to engage Washington on

regional issues and let many of the initiatives launched during the Vajpayee years

languish.

While the momentum of India-US regional cooperation has faltered in the second

term of the UPA Government (2009-14), the need for security cooperation in Asia

between Delhi and Washington has never been as critical as it is today. A weakened

United States needs credible partners in the region to cope with the new challenges in

Asia. India faces great uncertainty on its western and eastern flanks and needs US

cooperation more than ever before. India has had a tradition of dealing with its

regional security challenges on its own terms, rather than through cooperation with

other major powers. Delhi, under Modi, appears to be putting aside this reluctance

and taking a more realistic approach. After all, despite the significant expansion of its

own capabilities in the last two decades, India is not in a position to unilaterally

contain Pakistan, reclaim regional primacy, and balance China. Any Indian strategy

that focuses on producing these outcomes, rather than a rhetorical emphasis on

22

For a discussion of the possibilities generated by the rapprochement initiated by Bush and

Vajpayee, see Stephen J. Blank, Natural Allies: Regional Security in Asia and Prospects for Indo-

American Strategic Cooperation (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2005).

12

ideological virtues, would strengthen India’s position by pooling its resources with

that of another power that shares these interests.

During the Cold War, Soviet Russia played that role to a large extent. While Russia

remains an important strategic partner for India, it is not in a position to mitigate

India’s problems with Pakistan and China. While a partnership with the US makes

sense for India, would Washington be interested in deepening regional security

cooperation with India, as it prepares to withdraw from Afghanistan and recast its

Asia policy? Two possible scenarios can be considered. A weaker and isolationist

America might turn its back on Afghanistan and Pakistan and feel tempted to

compromise with China rather than confront it in Asia. An America rejuvenated in the

next few years might be strong enough to re-establish its primacy in Asia. In the real

world, though, the US is likely to find itself somewhere in between and has reasons to

value India’s role as a stabilising force in the region.

While the question of stabilising Pakistan and Afghanistan may not be easily

amenable to effective coordination between Delhi and Washington, Modi and Obama

appear to have begun a valuable conversation. They underlined the shared interests in

countering the sources of terrorism in the region and turning the north-west of the

Subcontinent into a bridge between South and Central Asia.23

The policy challenge in

Delhi and Washington in the near-term is to sustain a political dialogue on regional

issues, expand intelligence-sharing, and deepen military cooperation. That would

allow the two sides to seize opportunities that might present themselves for wider

regional coalitions in Asia. In fact Obama’s visit to India in January 2015 has begun

to move the two countries in that direction.

The Joint Vision statement on the Asia Pacific and the Indian Ocean issued by Modi

and Obama suggests a conscious effort by the two sides to deepen regional security

and economic cooperation. The two leaders declared that “a closer partnership

between the United States and India is indispensable to promoting peace, prosperity

23

See the U.S.-India Joint Statement, January 25, 2015, available at

<http://www.mea.gov.in/bilateraldocuments.htm?dtl/24726/Joint_Statement_during_the_visit_of_P

resident_of_USA_to_India_Shared_Effort_Progress_for_All>.

13

and stability” in the Indian Ocean and the Asia Pacific regions.24

They added, “From

Africa to East Asia, we will build on our partnership to support sustainable, inclusive

development, and increased regional connectivity by collaborating with other

interested partners to address poverty and support broad-based prosperity”.

Complementing the economic dimension was the recognition that “regional prosperity

depends on security. We affirm the importance of safeguarding maritime security and

ensuring freedom of navigation and overflight throughout the region, especially in the

South China Sea”. The two leaders also agreed to “develop a roadmap that leverages

our respective efforts to increase ties among Asian powers, enabling both our nations

to better respond” to the emerging diplomatic and security challenges in the region.

They also affirmed that “we will strengthen our regional dialogues, invest in making

trilateral consultations with third countries in the region more robust, deepen regional

integration, strengthen regional forums, explore additional multilateral opportunities

for engagement, and pursue areas where we can build capacity in the region that

bolster long-term peace and prosperity for all”. Never before has India agreed to such

expansive regional cooperation with the United States. In fact, this is also the first

time that India has agreed to undertake such a venture on a large scale with any great

power. If the UPA was reluctant to embark on substantive regional cooperation with

the United States, Modi appears to have discarded many inherited inhibitions.

Modi’s Art of the Deal

Closing the file on nuclear liability, expanding defence cooperation, exploring

common ground on climate change and extending the engagement to regional security

cooperation with Washington would not have been possible without a bold rethink

under the Modi Government on the importance of the US partnership in pursuing

India’s national objectives. For years now, progress on these issues has been held up

principally by the Indian reluctance to negotiate purposefully and find practical

solutions. By combining strong political will with a clear focus on practical outcomes,

Modi has altered the bilateral narrative on these issues, cleared the logjam and

generated a positive environment for further advances in the partnership with

America.

24

See n. 15.

14

The two summits in quick succession and the many productive outcomes from them

by no means suggest all will be hunky dory between Delhi and Washington. Even

America’s closest allies find engaging Washington and its multiple centres of decision

making an extremely demanding business. As Obama’s indirect criticism of the Modi

Government’s policies on religious freedom and the treatment of minorities shows,

India’s internal issues will continue to matter to the United States.25

On global issues

like trade and climate change, there is bound to be relentless pressure from

Washington on India to adapt. What has changed under Modi is India’s readiness to

engage on these issues and explore the possibilities for give-and-take.

The Americans, by nature, are practical people, and their diplomatic culture has been

one of finding practical solutions to problems by finding ways to work around

difficult obstacles. In fact it has been quite fashionable in India to criticise the United

States for being too transactional. The problem, however, was with the fact that India

was not sufficiently transactional. While this has been a generic problem with India's

foreign policy, it acquired an extra-edge in dealing with America.

Over the decades a culture of near-perversity, cloaked in ideological rhetoric, put

India in a position where it would rather negotiate against its own interests than find

common ground. Standing up against America and resisting any compromise was

considered an over-riding political virtue. This in turn filtered down to the

bureaucracy which turned extra-prickly in negotiating with the United States.

Repeated attempts at changing this culture had failed. Brief windows of creativity

often produce dramatic outcomes as in the negotiation of the historic civil nuclear

initiative and defence framework agreement in 2005 between India and the United

States. But translating those agreements into reality ran into the traditional problems

of political ambivalence and bureaucratic resistance.

As the first prime minister in three decades with full authority over his cabinet and the

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In a reference to the controversy over the agenda of the Hindu extremist groups to convert Muslims

and Christians, Obama referred to the freedom of religion guaranteed by the Indian Constitution.

More broadly he underlined the dangers that religious extremism poses for India’s own future:

‘India will succeed so long as it is not splintered along the lines of religious faith -- so long as it's

not splintered along any lines -- and is unified as one nation”; full text of Obama’s public address in

Delhi on January 27, 2015 is available at <https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-

office/2015/01/27/remarks-president-obama-address-people-india>

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bureaucracy, Modi has the means to negotiate effectively on India's interests from a

practical perspective. Modi’s bet on discarding the entrenched domestic

defensiveness in dealing with America has begun to pay off. In imagining a bold

trajectory of a comprehensive partnership with the United States, Modi is departing

from the Indian self-perception as a weak Third World nation that is afraid of

engaging America. Modi, in contrast, wants Delhi to see itself as an emerging power

and deal with Washington with self-assurance. Much in the manner that Deng

Xiaoping altered China’s destiny by partnering America in the late-1970s and 1980s,

Modi believes an American connection is critical for transforming India’s economy

and international standing.

The significance of this template goes well beyond India’s engagement with America.

Similar pragmatism could help India reconstitute its relations with its smaller

neighbours in the Subcontinent as well as major powers like China and in making

Delhi a more effective participant in multilateral forums. The record of Modi’s

foreign policy since the middle of 2014 promises precisely that outcome.

. . . . .